RON-dee-nay three syllables, accent on the first. It means “the swallow” (the bird).
La rondine is a romance, neither high tragedy nor broad comedy, about a doomed love affair between a worldly woman and an innocent young man. As in La bohème, this affair is contrasted with a parallel relationship between another pair of lovers. Given the right cast and production, it is a work of great charm with a good deal of truth in it, avoiding, as it does, the body count of tragedies and the often-cloying silliness of many operatic attempts at comedy. It boasts a lovely and flattering lead soprano role and a gracious lead tenor role for one who can project a credible youthful naïveté.
At the fringes, and just barely. After an initial success in the intimate, elegant opera house at Monte Carlo, Rondine found only moderate success in Italy. A bad production at the Teatro dal Verme in Milan sent Puccini into a rage, and he began to tinker with the score. He had high hopes for the Vienna premiere in 1920, but the score revisions in general added nothing and the work was not successful. Rondine came to the Met in 1928, in a much-applauded, beautiful production by Joseph Urban, but the Depression quashed hopes of bringing Rondine into the repertory. It was too risky a proposition during a time when the house could ill-afford it. The great soprano Lucrezia Bori gave three performances of Rondine in the 1930s as her farewell vehicle, and the piece has not been heard there since. Anna Moffo scored a great success with it in Philadelphia in 1960, which began the laborious process of rehabilitation for this neglected opera. More recently, several important productions in Italy, at Opera North in England, and at the New York City Opera, as well as elsewhere in the United States and in Europe, have done much to revive interest. Rondine was finally heard at Covent Garden in 2001.
So what’s the problem? How can a work by the mature Puccini possibly languish? There are several explanations. Rondine has many operatic parallels—too many for comfort. Puccini stated that he wanted to write something like Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, only lighter and with more comedy. It would have been better for Puccini had he never mentioned Der Rosenkavalier in this connection, since Rondine suffers greatly in the comparison. (It does, however, give us a clue as to how to approach the opera, with Rosenkavalier’s famous dictum of “one eye wet and the other dry”) The story of the worldly lady who relinquishes her young lover through her own wisdom hovers over Rondine and makes us question the real motivations of the protagonists, who are not as profoundly drawn out as in Strauss’s masterpiece. Puccini even quotes Strauss’s Salome in the course of Rondine, inviting further comparison. There is also La traviata, whose heroine renounces her great love for the sake of respectability. This is another comparison that does Rondine no service: Traviata is clear tragedy, and indeed Carner thought the lack of a truly tragic crisis in Rondine deprived Puccini of an opportunity to show his best stuff. Tito Ricordi Jr., who was, as we have seen, against this opera from the very start, called it “second-rate Lehar,” a fatuous dismissal but one that has given much fodder to critics ever since. The operetta comparison does, however, carry some weight in relation to Johann Strauss Jr.’s Die Fledermaus, with which Rondine has some structural similarities. Fledermaus, however, does not attempt any deep human drama and succeeds by maintaining a veneer of charming frothiness over some very serious and difficult music. Ron-dine has no such solid tone. There are elegant scenes of Parisian life, which bring to mind Manon (in both incarnations) and about a hundred other repertory operas. When the story of Rondine moves into a tale of budding love against the backdrop of the racier elements of Paris, we have no choice but to think of La bohème, against which no opera can survive a comparison. So one of Rondine’s biggest problems is that it is neither Der Rosenkavalier, nor La traviata, nor Die Fledermaus, nor Manon, nor least of all La bohème, while making us think of all of these masterpieces.
There are other problems as well. Everyone dislikes Act III. Some fault it for sentimentality, others for lack of dramatic crisis. My feeling is that it has qualities, but it seems to belong to another opera. Still, given the right setup with a compelling lead soprano and a sympathetic lead tenor, it can be touching and satisfying.
In fact, Rondine as a whole can be a magnificent experience. No one doubts that there is an abundance of great music in the score: most critical complaints are more along the lines of the whole being less than the sum of the parts, rather than there being a lack of quality parts. That Puccini decided to indulge in a score with a multitude of waltzes is nothing to disdain. His handling of the waltzes, and indeed the entire score, is masterful and sophisticated. One might complain of a certain sentimentality in the libretto, but no one complains of cheap effects in the score. Indeed, Rondine has not historically eluded audiences because it is too schmaltzy but rather because it is not schmaltzy enough. Had Puccini compromised his art to satisfy public tastes, as some used to accuse him of doing, he would have put neon lights around all the waltzes and jammed them down the audience’s throat, and probably would have written an opera with more box office life in it. The score has a charm that can please on first hearing (if one accepts right away that this will not be Bohème or any other opera). The real treasures become apparent after repeated exposures. It seems likely that Rondines progress toward the general repertory will continue, as well it should.
MAGDA DE CIVRY (soprano): A kept woman of Paris. The role is agreeable to many types of lyric and spinto voices, but it requires a certain stage presence: beauty, chic, and the ability to convey much with a glance or a sigh will go far in this role. Ashbrook went even further, comparing the libretto of Rondine to an early Garbo movie and suggesting that the role needs a genuine singing Garbo to convince the audience or she comes off as “a sentimental tart.” Ouch! The exaggerated point (if there were ever a Garbo who could sing, the world would certainly know about it), however, does illustrate how tall an order this role can be beyond the agreeable vocal demands.
LISETTE (soprano): Puccini defied convention by casting the two female leads in Bohème as sopranos, and lyric sopranos at that. Here, the voice types are even more similar, and sing in several ensembles together. It is a truly risky proposition. The best Lisettes are ones who vary from the Magda in the color of their voice, but sometimes this goes too far. Often, one comes across rather shrill sopranos in this role, cast in an attempt to emphasize the different colors. Given her perky, to put it kindly, personality, it can become truly obnoxious. However, if she doesn’t overdo the antics and trusts Puccini to show off her voice where he wanted to, the role can be very gratifying and can outshine the first soprano.
RUGGERO LASTOUC (tenor): On paper, Ruggero reads as the biggest nerd in all opera (no small distinction). However, portrayed by a tenor who can somehow project both erotic ardor and fresh innocence, he can come off as a very sympathetic and attractive character rather than naive to the point of idiocy.
PRUNIER (tenor): If Puccini was walking on thin ice with the two lyric soprano roles, he threw all caution to the wind in making the second male role a tenor. The same rules of vocal color apply here as with Lisette and Magda. The roles have sufficiently different characters to keep them clear onstage: where Ruggero is all youthful ardor (and lack of awareness), Prunier is jaded, worldly, and a little weird. Puccini actually recast the role for a baritone for the Vienna production of 1920, but this fell flat.
RAMBALDO FERNANDEZ (baritone): Magda’s “protector,” which was the elegant term for “sugar daddy” in bygone days. Rambaldo does have one distinction, however: he is clearly the nicest, most civilized “dirty old baritone” in all opera. His line to Magda when she leaves him is the model of admirable behavior. Imagine how different most operas would be if Rambaldo replaced the usual baritone. Vocally, it is best if Rambaldo can project a weary sangfroid and worldly detachment.
PÉRICHAUD (bass baritone): Anytime one sets an opera in Paris, it means there will be a plethora of “party guests” who must be kept busy during elegant ensemble scenes. Périchaud is one of these characters, invented, it would seem, to create employment opportunities for assistant directors.
GOBIN (tenor): Another Parisian party animal.
CRÉBILLON (bass baritone): And yet another….
RABONNIER (baritone): A customer at Bullier’s. He is often played by the same singer as Crébillon.
YVETTE (soprano): And what Parisian party scene would be complete without a trio of elegant strumpets?
BIANCA (soprano): Strumpet #2.
SUZY (mezzo-soprano):… and #3.
GEORGETTE (soprano): An habituée of Bullier’s, usually doubled by the Yvette.
GABRIELLA (soprano): Another Bullier’s customer, doubled by Bianca.
A BUTLER (bass): He delivers a letter. It’s an important letter, but still…. Look for Crébillon here.
A VOICE (soprano): One of Puccini’s marvelous “passing song” effects. This voice has her entire “song” doubled by a piccolo for an excellent sense of urgency amid the melancholy.
Setting: Magda’s elegant salon in Paris.
Magda is pouring coffee and Lisette is serving it to the various groups of guests. Prunier is chatting with Yvette, Suzy, and Bianca, who giggle and tease Prunier. He must be kidding! No, Prunier insists, he is quite serious. The latest rage in Paris is… falling in love! Lisette interrupts. How ridiculous! “I want you, do you want me?” There! That’s all there is to it! Prunier complains to Magda of her maid’s impertinence, but Magda says the unusual is the norm in her house. Yvette, Suzy and Bianca swoon and act out parodies of sentimental love. Magda asks Prunier to continue in spite of the joking. Prunier notes Magda’s interest, and continues. It is like a germ attacking all the ladies of Paris. No one is safe, not even Doretta. Who is Doretta? they all ask. She is Prunier’s newest heroine in a song he has composed. He sits at the piano and strums some chords. Who can interpret Doretta’s lovely dream? A king offers her gold for her favors, but she tells the king she isn’t looking for gold. But Prunier lacks a conclusion. How should the song finish? Magda sits at the piano and sings. One day, Doretta meets a student, who kisses her passionately and she surrenders entirely.
Comment, scene and aria, “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta”: The opera opens with a languid waltz, or actually a theme signifying a waltz more than an actual waltz. This morphs into light and vapid “chatter” music with Puccini’s predictable deftness. The subject of the “outrageousness of sentimental love” is thought by many to be Puccini winking at his own career, based on this very notion. Prunier is thought by quite a few to be a parody of D’Annunzio. It is tempting to agree with this, and it allows us to apply all the eccentricities of that poet to all the obnoxious qualities of our present poet, but it doesn’t quite add up. Prunier is a silly goose with an inflated sense of self but he is hardly the toxic madman that D’Annunzio had revealed himself to be (at least to Puccini) even as early as 1916. I believe) D’Annunzio is present in Prunier merely to signify “poet,” since he was the most famous poet in Europe at that time. This is certainly a gentler parody than the D’Annunzio of this era might have expected to receive from any sane Italian.
The three Parisian bimbos recall Massenet’s Manon, and several other French operas as well, perhaps in an effort to create some sort of “authentic” Parisian ambience for the work. The operatic surprise comes when Prunier sits at the piano and actually plays (not really: he mimes well). He strums some wide-open chords, reminiscent of the whole-tone scales used in Fanciulla, to let us know that this is dreamtime he is singing about now. The intrusion of the piano from (theoretically) the stage is quite striking: Girardi goes so far as to call it “metatheater,” although Pirandellian metaphors seem a bit much for this work. And yet, we have this first act, where people talk about memories and dreams, and then the subsequent act, where those are played out in vivid detail, so perhaps Girardi is not overstating the case that much. The piano on the stage had been used by Giordano in Fedora, but in that opera we have an actual concert pianist (a supposed nephew of Chopin, no less) playing a set piece rather than a character in the opera playing his own song at the piano. Whatever it is, structurally, it is quite remarkable. Prunier sings the chatty first lines of the aria and then rhapsodizes in poetic speech (spoken) over the main theme, played diaphanously in the high strings. When Magda sits at the piano, she appropriates the main theme from the orchestra. It is a famous piece from concerts, made an appearance in the film A Room with a View (although everyone only remembers “O mio babbino caro” from that film), and is devilishly difficult. The refrain hits and hovers around high Q and the large intervals both up and down the scale require sure technique and seamless vocal production. You can tell a lot about Puccini’s portent from the size of his intervals, the “distance” between consecutive notes. The score of Bohème is noted for its small intervals, climaxes building step-by-step up and down the scale, telling the story of real people going through the actual process of daily emotions. Magda’s leaps here, conversely, tell us that she is indulging in a fantasy far-fetched from her present reality, even if we shortly find out that it is inspired from an incident in her past. As we who attend films know, and Magda will soon find out, the term “based on a true story” does not make a fact out of a flight of fancy.
The friends praise Magda, but she tells them not to mock her. How different her life might have been! The friends insist that her dreams of romantic love are exquisite. Prunier warns that the demon of romantic love lurks in every heart, but Rambaldo insists he is immune, armed with holy water against it. He takes a box out of his pocket and blithely hands it to Magda. It is a magnificent pearl necklace. He had intended to give it to her at lunch, but forgot. Everyone except Magda is impressed. It doesn’t change the way she feels about true love. “I didn’t expect it to,” Rambaldo blandly replies. Lisette runs in and excitedly blurts to the confused Rambaldo that a young man is here to see him. Rambaldo asks Magda how she can put up with a little windmill like Lisette, but Magda defends the maid as a ray of sunshine in her life. Yvette, Suzy and Bianca wonder at Magda’s self-pity when she has done so well for herself, but Magda remembers a night at Bullier’s nightclub when she kissed a young student. No amount of money can compete with that! The student ordered two bocks and paid with a single gold coin, telling the waiter to keep the change! A voice, as though from a distance, told her to beware the dangers of total surrender. That was all that happened: two beers, a tip, and a kiss, all in two hours, but she has held on to the memory all these years. Prunier scoffs at such sordid encounters. He himself was born for higher adventures in love, and needs a Galatea, a Berenice, a Francesca, a Salome! He says he can read the goal of every woman in the palm of her hand, and offers to read Magda’s. They arrange a screen by the piano, and Prunier retreats behind it with the women, leaving the vulgar commoners in the rest of the room. Prunier studies her hand. Lisette announces the gentleman visitor: Ruggero Lestouc, the son of Rambaldo’s old friend, only just now arrived in Paris for the first time. He hands Rambaldo a letter of introduction. Prunier prophesizes a strange future for Magda. Perhaps, like the swallow, she will travel beyond the sea toward sunshine and love. But the fate is two-faced: is it a smile or anguish? It’s a mystery. Rambaldo asks Ruggero if this is his first time in Paris, and Ruggero says yes, rhapsodizing on the city of dreams and desires. Rambaldo calls out Prunier and asks him where a young man should spend his first night in Paris. “In bed,” answers the grumpy Prunier. It’s true! All this nonsense about one’s first night in Paris has to stop. Lisette defends her native Paris as the realm of women. The other women suggest destinations for the young man: Bal Musard? Frascati? Cadet? Pré Catalan? It’s all so glittering! No, says Lisette. Bullier’s! That’s where love is to be found, and light, and flowers. Anything can happen there. All agree, except Magda, who warns everyone to go easy on the newcomer. Rambaldo takes his leave and the guests follow out. Magda gives Lisette the rest of the night off.
Comment: Lisette’s announcement of the visitor is a breathy but long-winded study of the limits of tonality. Surely Tito Ricordi Jr.’s dismissal of this score as “second-rate Lehar” proves what a cursory glance he must have given it, missing brief moments such as these. You won’t find anything like this in The Merry Widow, whatever its other charms may be. Magda’s recollection of her big night at Bullier’s is full of disjointed waltzlike themes that rather miraculously sound to our ears like reminiscences even though they are new to us. The “distant voice” takes on the recognizable form of a sad waltz. It plays again in the orchestra when Ruggero walks into the room even though nothing is said. Another “magic of opera” moment. Prunier’s list of women brings him closer to D’Annunzio, whose Francesca da Rimini was on everyone’s lips for a while (including the House of Ricordi, who had it set by Zandonai as the opera that would be everything Puccini was not). His mention of Salome is another nod at Richard Strauss, and sure enough the orchestra slyly quotes Strauss at that moment. Ruggero’s soliloquy about Paris was added for the Vienna production of 1920, and it sounds like an add-on. In fact, it was a reworking of the song “Morire?” which had been composed by Puccini for a fund-raising Red Cross collection of songs. Although most of the Vienna 1920 alterations have fallen by the wayside, tenors do not easily relinquish this bit since they have so little solo time in this opera. If we do not scruple to wonder why the innocent man who will soon express disdain for Parisian tarts is so effusive about Paris as the city of love, then we can appreciate this moment for the chance it gives us to understand the tenor’s vocal characteristics early in the opera.
Magda repeats Prunier’s mysterious prophesy “toward sunshine and love.” Suddenly she is struck by an idea. “Bullier’s!” she says, and runs into her boudoir. Prunier and Lisette tiptoe back into the room. Prunier declares his love, insisting it pains him to insult her in company. They decide to go out, and Lisette puts on a hat she has “borrowed” from Magda. Prunier doesn’t like it, and she leaves to find another. Alone, Prunier begs the Muses to forgive him for stooping so low. Lisette returns with a different hat and a cloak. Prunier remains unimpressed. Lisette scampers off to change again, and Prunier again asks the muses to forgive him for being such an aesthete and condescending to advise such a creature on these matters. Lisette returns in another outfit, and Prunier advises her on her makeup. They pass out of the room, kissing and declaring their love. “I kiss you because I am you!” they say. They leave.
Magda comes into the salon dressed simply as a grisette with a simple coiffure. “Who would recognize me?” she asks. She reminisces about Doretta’s dream, putting a single rose in her hair, and leaves.
Comment: So, we discover, Prunier and Lisette are secretly lovers, and their banter is a smoke screen. Yet even alone they are a strange pair, with his control issues extending even to her details of makeup. Some directors find this too tempting to resist, and have Prunier play it as a flaming queen, a sort of “Queer Lye for the Grisette.” This comes off as a cop-out. If Prunier isn’t sexually attracted to Lisette, there’s nothing left to justify their odd relationship. And the score tells us they are genuinely involved. The music here is among the most beguiling of the score: a repeating ostinato, melancholy and somewhat mechanical, that wanders around the various instruments while the singers’ comments surf above it. What does it all mean? Budden thought it a good portrayal of “love on the sly.” Girardi heard a self-propulsion that reminded him of Tristan. Granted, scholars hear Tristan everywhere, and the comparison seems a bit de trop, yet it is mysterious and ambiguous and Girardi comes closer to the mark when he suggests they are performing some familiar action, like playing a game. I certainly hear that, and it makes these two lovers, whatever their eccentricities, “fit” together in a way that will continue to elude Magda and Ruggero. The conclusion of the act is very quiet and understated, with Magda’s glance in the mirror perhaps yet another reference to Richard Strauss and his fascinating heroines.
Setting: Bullier’s nightclub.
A great crowd mixes at Bullier’s: students, grisettes, prostitutes, tourists, flower-sellers, while waiters bustle between tables and lovers stroll into the adjacent garden. Georgette and Gabriella, two young ladies, search the crowd for rich men. Magda appears at the top of the grand staircase, hesitating before descending. Students try to flirt with her, but she spots Ruggero at a table and she takes refuge there. Not recognizing her from the salon, he says she is not like the other aggressive girls there, but more like the modest young ladies of his hometown, Montauban. She takes his arm and they stroll into the garden for a dance.
Prunier and Lisette mingle among the crowd, he trying in vain to instill a sense of decorum in her. She tells him she is flirting so he will clamp down on her and stop her. Magda and Ruggero return, hot and tired from dancing. He orders two bocks, and she is transported with joy. She asks him to humor her by paying with a twenty-sou coin and telling the waiter to keep the change. He complies, laughing. He toasts her health, she toasts his loves, but he protests. He will fall in love only once, and it will be forever. They flirt but they don’t even know each other’s names. She writes hers down on some paper: Paulette. They are drawn to each other, and kiss.
Lisette thinks she recognizes Magda across the room, and cries out. Magda shoots Prunier a look, who immediately nods. He will play the game. They sit at the table, Lisette completely confused and explaining that “Paillette” looks just like her mistress, if Paulette were elegant. Magda admires Lisette’s outfit (really her own clothes) and sarcastically compliments her on her elegance. She then asks Prunier if Lisette is Salome or Berenice. Ruggero is oblivious, and the champagne arrives. He proposes a toast to love, which has brought them all together. They and the crowd toast this moment of love and friendship.
Comment, scene and quartet: The opening of this act cannot fail to bring to mind Act II of La bohème, with its vision of all Paris in the streets. We do not have “all Paris” here, but enough of it, minus the children. It is managed with Puccini’s predictable economy and sophistication. Instead of having Magda and Ruggero sing a standard love duet when they meet (again), all is understated and the growing erotic attraction is depicted by the background crowd, an excellent decision. There is a slow, quiet waltz, and then Magda and Ruggero go offstage. The waltz onstage becomes rather raucous, interjected with “whoops” from the crowd, while Magda and Ruggero interject abstract expressions from afar: “sweetness, madness!” and so forth. It’s a nifty way of telegraphing all these signifiers to the audience without having to make a coherent syntactic narrative of the words of love, which usually sound kind of silly onstage anyway. The subsequent ballet is short and gets the message across. Prunier and Lisette lighten the moment with some of their comedy, although it has the effect of making Ruggero seem even more clueless than he needs to. No matter: his revenge comes shortly, when he leads the ravishing quartet, the lyric highlight of the score. Dramatically, there is no need whatsoever for the quartet, but one really must put aside such scruples when the beauty of the music is its own justification. It does have operatic precedence in Die Fledermaus, which hovers over this opera in some ways. Fledermaus contains an excellent ensemble/chorus in its analogous “party scene” in Act II, with the party goers toasting friendship and love. The Fledermaus ensemble acknowledges its own fluffiness by descending into a chorus of nonsense words, “dui-du,” under the pretext of everyone having drunk champagne. If Rondine has marks of metatheater, as Girardi thought, then perhaps we can understand the quartet as metaopera. That is, do love and beauty really require sensible explanations? Don’t they pop up where least expected in real life? Pascal famously said, “The heart has its reasons the mind does not know.” Had he been an opera fan, Pascal might have stated that the score has its reasons the libretto cannot know. The quartet begins with Ruggero’s solo, joined by the other three and eventually by the chorus. Magda’s line begins as interjected decorations to Ruggero’s, but it imperceptibly becomes the core of the ensemble. The climax of the melody becomes Magda’s, who takes it up to a high Q repeated and supported by Lisette and eventually by the chorus. Ruggero has “gotten to” Magda, after which she becomes the clear motivator of the relationship. Prunier and Lisette add their lines like a round, albeit a very sophisticated one. When the beauty has spread to the crowd, we have one of the most thorough indications imaginable that “love is in the air.” Yet it is a certain kind of love, very different from what we experienced in Bohème or any other Puccini opera. The melody of the quartet is rapturous but distinctly melancholy. We can safely assume that Magda and Ruggero have no real future together, but the generalized nature of the ensemble suggests the fleeting nature of all romantic dreams. The whole world, by implication, is caught up in Magda’s dilemma. No dramatic purpose indeed! The Rondine quartet is one of the high points of Puccini’s art, and audiences never fail to respond enthusiastically.
Rambaldo appears, and Prunier tries to distract him, unsuccessfully Alone with Magda, he forgives her this indiscretion and orders her home. She tells him she loves Ruggero, and will not return home, adding that she is sorry and didn’t mean to hurt him. Calmly, he hopes she does not regret her decision, and takes his leave. The place is empty. Magda sits at the table, lost in thought. Dawn is breaking. A passing woman on the street sings to beware of believing in love. Ruggero returns and asks if she cares to leave. They go together, promising to love each other forever.
Comment: Magda’s breakup with Rambaldo is surely unique in all opera. He remains calm, even blasé throughout their little scene, while she vacillates between excitement, tenderness, and calm resignation. No wonder this opera must take place in Paris rather than in Italy, and no wonder the Italians had less stomach for it than the French in its initial run. The passing woman’s voice is excellent: she sings a simple pentatonic melody that intrudes on the previous lyricism, as primal as erotic attraction itself. The voice is doubled by the piccolo playing very quietly, which adds a subtly shrill quality to her warning. One can almost feel the butterflies in Magda’s stomach, and here some mute acting ability is called for. The denouement is played against a soft reiteration of the quartet theme in the cellos and then the violins because, well, how could it not be? They depart the stage and sing “Amor!” from afar—an absolute dare to the audience to compare and contrast this moment with La bohème. It’s almost as if Puccini himself were trying to put some perspective on the romance of his own youth and the most emblematic product of his younger self (just as the debate about romantic love at the opera’s beginning seems like a debate about romantic opera in general). Whatever its baggage, the finale of the act is poignant as only Puccini can be, and causes a lot of humming in the lobby during the subsequent intermission.
Setting: The garden of a hillside villa outside of Nice.
Magda and Ruggero admire the view of the sea, murmuring words of love and reminiscing about the night they met in Paris. Ruggero interrupts the idyll with a confession and a secret. The confession is that he is out of money and being hounded by creditors. Even the landlord of the villa is starting to get irritated. Magda pities him. He admits his secret: he has asked his parents’ permission to marry Magda. She is startled. Isn’t she pleased? She hesitates. She just… she wasn’t expecting…. He tells her of his home in the country, with an orchard. They could walk there, under the sacred protection of his mother, and, who knows, maybe someday a child of theirs will reach out a hand to that sunshine … Who knows? He strokes her hair but runs off to check the mail. She is in a quandary. Should she tell him the details of her past? No, she cannot. Yet, neither can she be silent. She goes into the summer house.
Comment: Musical reminiscences of their first meeting are abundant in this scene, suggesting that the lovers, however happy they may feel in their present situation, are outside of real time and therefore separated a bit from reality. The orchestra softly plays waltz themes throughout their dialogue as well, and we sense that Magda, for all her honeyed words, seems to have a bit of nostalgia for her former life. It is an important motivator for subsequent events, but generally too subtle to convince the audience. Ruggero’s description of his simple country house is in the form of an aria, but it is very static in its forthright structure. This is, of course, meant to contrast with the Byzantine complexity of Parisian life, but it takes some real artistry in the hands of the tenor to avoid sounding banal. Verdi pulled off this trick in La traviata when the father sings an actual lullaby (“Di Provenza”) to try to convince his son to leave Paris and return to his respectable home in the country, but the situation was different enough in that opera to make the gimmick foolproof. The trick of contrasting the two lifestyle choices before Magda is problematic if the audience is not to root for her to run from Ruggero’s dreary offer like a bat out of hell.
Lisette and Prunier wander into the garden, bickering. She had made her debut as a singer the night before in Nice—and flopped! She blames Prunier for putting her up to it, and looks for Magda. Prunier defends himself: he only wanted to make her a star to improve his conquest! She tells him to stop putting on airs. She would endure anything except another night like the night before! Even now, she seems to hear voices. Are they chasing her to mock her again? Prunier gets her to relax in the calm of the garden. The voices she heard were only a butler with a letter for Ruggero. Magda appears, surprised to see the guests. Prunier apologizes for interrupting her solitude. Magda is spoken of in Paris—no one believes this solitary life is right for her. Magda protests with sadness that she is perfectly happy. Lisette asks to return to Magda’s service, and Magda immediately accepts. Prunier sneers. Lisette is nothing but what she has always been. Perhaps Magda will make the same discovery about herself. Magda tells him to be quiet, but Prunier protests that it was his duty to tell her this, and now he has performed that duty. Rambaldo, who has heard about Magda’s problems, asked Prunier to let her know that he was available to resume their prior relationship whenever she desired. He begs his leave, making derogatory comments to Lisette, who returns in kind. Farewell forever, he bids her, and she expresses satisfaction at his parting. Before he leaves, he asks her in a whisper what time she is off work. “At ten,” she answers. “I’ll be waiting for you,” he replies, and exits with great dignity.
Comment: The intrusion of Lisette and Prunier in the scene is a deft touch of comedic contrast. Listen for the off-sounding piccolos in the orchestra as Lisette is tormented by the memory of the boos and whistles of the previous night. The orchestra plays some themes reminiscent of Paris while Magda is denying any present unhappiness, one of those marvelous moments that can only happen in opera. She is already moving back to Paris in her mind. Lisette and Prunier’s parting lines are parlato and always get a welcome laugh.
Lisette asks for work to do: she wants to keep busy. Magda tells her she missed her. Lisette runs off, dons her maid’s outfit, shows up again to show it off, curtsies, and leaves. Ruggero runs in, excited. His mother has written him and assented to their marriage. Won’t Magda read the letter herself? She begins: “Son, you tell me that a tender creature has touched your heart. May she be blessed if the Lord has sent her.” Magda hangs her head, but Ruggero urges her to continue.” It brings tears to my eyes to think that she will be the mother of your children, since children make love sacred. If you know that she is good, gentle, pure, and has all the virtues, God bless her. “four parents’ simple home awaits your return with your chosen bride. Kiss her for me.” Ruggero bestows his mother’s kiss on Magda’s forehead, but she recoils. She cannot accept it. She cannot deceive him. Her past cannot be forgotten, and she cannot enter his parents’ house. She was not pure when she met him. He protests that he does not care, but she insists there is more that he doesn’t know. She passed in triumph between shame and gold. He does not want to hear any more. Doesn’t she realize that she is ruining his life? And doesn’t he think that this is tormenting her? she counters. But she must tell him the truth now, and they must part. He begs her not to leave him, but she tells him she must, and asks him to remember her sacrifice for him. She strokes his hair and speaks to him as a mother to a dear son. Let him go on, she will bear all the pain in her sad life. Church bells toll in the background for vespers. Lisette appears from the summer house, and without a word surmises the situation. She takes Magda by the arm, wiping her tears with a handkerchief. Magda gives one last, tender glance back at Ruggero, who is sitting with his head in his hands, sobbing. She and Lisette leave together.
Comment: The letter reads like it would be a great climactic musical moment, but Puccini must have wanted to maintain the lighter touch. The result is not entirely satisfying. In opera, paradoxically, highly sentimental dramatic moments must be matched by analogous music or they will appear more sentimental. There is also a bit of a problem with the breakup, as Carner noted. Ruggero says he does not care about Magda’s past, so there is no great compelling reason for her to break up just then. Yet Puccini did not want to make her a coldhearted bitch and say flat out that she was bored (as, say, Carmen might have said if she were in this opera), so she can come across as rather insincere when she speaks of her sacrifice. (Here there is more unnecessary comparison with the heroine of Traviata, who speaks much of “sacrifice” and who has every reason to use the word.) Budden asked the salient point, in his most piquant British way, “What did Magda suppose she was about anyway?” It’s a hard question to slough off. Ruggero’s response is likewise a bit mystifying. He pleads with her not to leave him, but only a little, and acquiesces rather too quickly and quietly. There are none of the threats (force, suicide, etc.) that one might expect from a tenor who is being dumped. Of course this is not Ruggero’s style, which is why it is so important that he convince us of his utter sincerity and integrity in the previous acts. Otherwise he will just appear as a wimp. This sounds cold and macho, but it is true. It is all very well to complain of the standard tenor role in Italian opera being stupid and prone to testosterone-driven, impulsive action, but the fact is that if the tenor lacks an opportunity to demonstrate some resolve, his high voice might make him sound whiny and rather self-pitying. Only an excellent tenor can keep us from having contempt for Ruggero at this point, and few excellent tenors get around to singing Ruggero. (There recently have been, thank God, exceptions.) As for Magda, the answers are in the orchestra, assuming those can be embodied by the soprano and transmitted to the audience. We hear reminiscences of the “romantic love” music that accompanied the opening of the opera at the beginning of their confrontation. Magda’s decision is based on the realization that she has been living an illusion. If only she had found a way to say precisely that in plain Italian, perhaps this moment would be more convincing. However, a fine soprano will find a way to communicate that idea—a change of vocal color, perhaps—and then we do not need to fault Magda for being coldhearted or hypocritical. She can, under the right circumstances, come off as having the weary wisdom of the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, even if she gets no help from the libretto and only the subtlest help from the score. The bells tolling at the end are haunting and a good indicator of Puccini’s intentions in this scene: the most poignant eulogies are not necessarily for dead people, but rather (as we saw in Bohème) for dead illusions.